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Thursday, October 1, 2015

There it is!

I realize that this is a sensationalized headline, meant to attract my attention and meant to make me feel compelled to click the link that boasts it will lead me to an article about how Pro-Abortion Martin O'Malley Opposes Death Penalty Because of the "Dignity in Every Person’s Life". The article brings says this:How can someone be for abolishing the death penalty on the basis of the “dignity in every person’s life,” but be in favor of keeping abortion legal? Abortion proponents have a similar question for pro-lifers. They ask, “How can a pro-life person be for the death penalty and war?”The very next paragraph jumps into a legal defense of war:The law is filled with distinctions. This is why we need good judges. But it doesn’t take a legal expert to see the difference between a civil magistrate putting to death a convicted murderer and/or rapist, and a doctor killing an innocent, unwanted, not-yet-born baby. One has committed a capital crime. The other has committed no crime whatsoever. One would be justice; the other would be murder.The issue I have with this argument is that "the law" being cited is "man's law", not "God's law." I see that as an issue. As a Catholic, I do believe that God created man. I also believe that I have the glorious burden of trying to live my life honoring the sacrifice God made when he sacrificed his only son on the cross as a means to forgive my sins. To me, that means obeying God's law, which is "thou shalt not kill." I am not a philosophy guru by any means, but if the law says "don't kill" then, killing someone, whether it is an unborn in the womb or a grown man who has done a terrible thing, is wrong, right?

That's the appeal of someone like Bernie Sanders. What is a Socialist? To me, and probably to those who support his candidacy for president, it's taking care of every person in the country. Who can argue against that? Who can argue that the poor shouldn't be helped? Who can argue that the mentally ill shouldn't be helped? Who can argue that the homeless should be sheltered and fed?

I don't argue against those things. What I do argue against is the implementation programs that are designed to help the poor, to help the mentally ill, and to help the homeless, sometimes are abused. Not all programs, but some. It's as easy to read about how someone is receiving benefits from a program that shouldn't be receiving them as easily as it is to read about how someone who isn't receiving benefits from a program that should be. I argue against the fiscal irresponsibility of the United States to be trillions of dollars in debt. I don't buy the product that President Obama is the blame. What I perceive as being the real issue is that there have been a lot of times when people take advantage of a system. Does that have any chance of ending soon?

No. I don't believe so. I go back to Carly Floriana's comments in the last Republican debate where she talked about a fish doesn't know that they are in water. I go back to the outcry about how the new U of I president has been criticized for not having academic experience. Finally, I go back to my perception that Republican and Democrat presidential candidates that are coming from "outside" the way business is done in our country in Washington are popular because they appear to be offering an alternative to the way business is being done. That's why Trump, Floriana, Ben Carson, and Bernie Sanders (not because he's a US Senator, but because he is marketing himself as a Socialist) are popular. Each off the above candidates appear to offer an alternative to the status quo, which is the perception that the federal government is unable to help anyone in our country.

Which leads me to this idea that the citizens of our country can be neatly divided into two: liberal or conservative. And I don't buy that theory. I was talking to someone recently about this. Their statement was that in our kids' lifetime, there would be a rise in a third political party that wouldn't serve just to take votes away from one political party in order to raise the other. From my non-Political Science degree perspective, the true way that a third political will be able to rise is if our presidential elections are not based upon the electoral college and, instead, based upon the popular vote of the people.

But I'm not going there - whether the electoral college is a good or bad part of our political system. You won't find the answer to that idea or the other issues I mentioned above on this blog. Not today or ever.